March 2021 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Cryptocurrency: WabiSabi - Coordinated CoinJoin with Variable Amounts
by grarpamp 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrx6WfV0ck End of the State As We Know It https://github.com/zkSNACKs/WabiSabi https://eprint.iacr.org/2021/206 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPD7IR2fn34 WabiSabi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P5sQwiwscI Wasabi Research #23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3G6CUDPr0c WabiSabi Construction WabiSabi by Analogy WabiSabi is a protocol (work in progress) for constructing CoinJoin transactions with the aid of a centralized coordinator. It utilizes keyed-verification anonymous credentials, homomorphic value commitments, and zero knowledge proofs to achieve privacy and flexibility. This writeup attempts to give an intuition for how these different cryptographic building blocks work by using a real world analogy intended for readers who are already familiar with the concept of a CoinJoin. Setting Several Bitcoin users want to build a CoinJoin transaction with each user contributing one or more UTXOs and arbitrarily reallocating their contributed amount, without revealing to the coordinator or to each other any links between their different inputs or the new outputs they want to create. To facilitate this a coordinator will keep a registry of the separate inputs and outputs, ensuring that a user can only claim the amount of Bitcoin they are entitled to, but without learning about the links between these. The coordinator will need an office to meet with the users, a seal and some sealing wax, an accurate scale with a large tray, and a blowtorch. The users will need a number of envelopes, some sand, their own scales for private use, and some convincing fake moustaches for incognito interactions with the coordinator. We will assume the weight of the envelopes themselves is negligible, or can be easily corrected for, perhaps because they have a standard weight. If you want to have a better idea of how these components of our analogy map to the actual crypto, skip to the final section, or continue reading in order to build up an intuition first. Input Registration For every UTXO a user wants to register as an input she will repeat the following steps. In the privacy of her own home she weighs out a quantity of sand, which we assume is worthless, in proportion to the UTXO's value. She then distributes the sand into a number of envelopes as she pleases, and closes them. With her envelopes prepared, she puts on fake moustache (a different one for each input), so that the coordinator can't recognize her, and enters the coordinator's office. She convinces the coordinator that she can spend the UTXO in question, and places the corresponding envelopes on the scale all at once, laid flat on the tray. The coordinator confirms that the total weight matches the UTXO value, and if everything adds up, applies the seal to the closed envelopes without handling them more than necessary (so that it can't guess the weights), as the user observes. The user can inspect the seal to make sure it matches some pictures, published in advance, in order to be convinced that the coordinator doesn't use slightly different ones to trace the individual wax seals back to a specific input later. The user collects the sealed envelopes from the tray and leaves. Output Registration After all inputs have been registered, users can now use their envelopes to register output amounts. The following steps are also repeated once per output. The user will put on yet another fake moustache, come into the coordinator's office, and place an arbitrary combination of envelopes on the scale. The coordinator checks that the seals are authentic, and then to ensure that the envelopes can't be used again or weighed individually, they are set on fire using the blowtorch, allowing the sand to spill out onto the tray. The coordinator adds the requested output with an amount corresponding to weight of the sand on the tray, and the user leaves. The sand can be discarded having served its purpose. Signing When the input and output amounts are balanced the coordinator can conclude that no non-empty envelopes remain, and builds the final CoinJoin transaction with the registered inputs and outputs. The users go back into the coordinator's office, once for each input (wearing the appropriate moustache) and after confirming that the output registrations have been included in the proposed transaction they sign for that input. After everyone has signed, the transaction can be broadcast. Cryptographic Counterparts The cryptographic counterparts in the above analogy are as follows: The envelopes are homomorphic value commitments, specifically Pedersen commitments. Commitments have two properties, binding, which means that once a value is committed it can't be changed, and hiding, which means that the value in the commitment is not revealed unless the committer opens the commitment. Note that in this protocol the commitments aren't actually opened, instead we only prove statements about the commitment openings in zero knowledge. The scale and sand correspond to a zero knowledge proof system, allowing the users to convince the coordinator of that the values in the commitments are correct without needing to reveal them (note that the sums appear on the blockchain). The wax seals represent keyed-verification anonymous credentials, which let the coordinator verify that it previously certified a specific value commitment as being a summand in the decomposition of an input amount without being able to link it to the input registration where the credential was issued. The fake moustaches represent Tor circuits through which the users connect to the coordinator under pseudonymous network identities. Setting the envelopes on fire is a bit of a looser analogy. First, it represents serial numbers for the credentials (derived from the randomness in the commitment), which are used to prevent double spending. Secondly, it gives an intuition for the homomorphic property of the commitments which simplifies proving that they add up to the correct input and output values without revealing the individual summands.

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Cryptocurrency: Free Talk Live Arrested for Crypto Freedom, Consider Helping
by grarpamp 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://freetalklive.com/ 1-855-450-FREE LIVE Everyday 7pm-10pm ET https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02andqKlExc Free Talk Live Raided https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sHF15jNALk Free Talk Live Raided https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAXojGNG8N1GmTWlCCz4HEA https://manchesterinklink.com/fbi-descends-on-keene-and-surrounding-areas-a… https://www.justice.gov/usao-nh/pr/six-charged-crimes-related-virtual-curre… Those who know crypto adoption history, know of Free Talk Live and Ian Freeman et al their crypto adoption, free speech, FreeState NHFree, Libertarian outreach, and other related efforts over years. Ian Freeman, Colleen Fordham, Renee Spinella Andrew Spinella, Nobody, Aria DiMezzo In lots of countries it is perfectly legal to buy sell barter trade exchange any amount of crypto in P2P way for personal digital "gold and silver" investing, goods and services, business use, and for any other purposes. P2P tx is the original way of cryptocurrency spreading and adoption, since then been subverted by rise of "exchange / atm / payment processing" businesses, by "laws", govt apologists, and FUD mongers. If it is not legal in your country, then your country's government is fucked up, and is against both you and freedom and business, and you need to get rid of such govt ASAP. No victim, no crime.

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GPS data helps feds identify Texas man accused of participating in Capitol riot
by jim bell 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gps-data-helps-feds-identify-texas-man…

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Cyberpunk: Digital and Genetic Immortality
by grarpamp 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35788050/dyson-sphere-digital-res… https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/332066-digital-immortality-turchin Gene manipulation the far more likely path to immortality, given a focus on biomedical research, now readily achievable within a lifetime, and being financed with Bitcoin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality Researchers Believe It's Possible To Become Immortal Might future humans resurrect the dead? Well, Russian researchers Alexey Turchin and Maxim Chernyakov, who belong to the transhumanism movement, wrote a paper explaining the "roadmap to immortality" that involves superintelligent AI systems powered by Dyson spheres as the primary technology might someday make resurrection possible. Turchin and Chernyakov wrote, "there no evidence of an afterlife. But there's also no proof that medical death is the end of subjective experience, or that death is irreversible, or immortality impossible." The paper, which Popular Mechanics first reported, is titled "Classification of Approaches to Technological Resurrection," which offers a roadmap to immortality. "Death seems to be a permanent event, but there is no actual proof of its irreversibility," the authors write. And "while no method is currently possible, many…may become feasible with future technological development." Turchin and Chernyakov examine both conventional and future technologies of making humanity immortal, from cryogenics to uploading brains onto the cloud then transplanted into clone bodies. They said "strong AI" will be the most critical technology to download the brain's contents, but that technology could years away. "The development of AI is going rather fast, but we are still far away from being able to 'download' a human into a computer," Turchin told Russia Beyond. "If we want to do it with a good probability of success, then count on [the year] 2600, to be sure." The authors said the power supply behind the AI would be so powerful that it would need a "Dyson spheres," a megastructure of solar panels that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The paper describes life as a "continued stream of subjective experiences" and death as an end of that stream. Immortality, to the researchers, is a "life stream without end," and resurrection is the "continuation of that same stream of experiences after an arbitrarily long gap." Digital immortality is inevitable...

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Anonymous: Operation Last Resort
by grarpamp 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPni5O2YyI Anonymous: Operation Last Resort re Swartz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA1SgYXP2HU OpLastResort vs Fed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_72vFqzrQIU Anon and Swartz via TheTrutherGirls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFUzTzMnEP0 Swartz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-iBR5t5fQ MegaUpload Anonymous 2021... We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us. #AnonOps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(hacker_group)

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Drugs: CzarBiden and KamalaTheInhaler Fire Staff - Party Drugs for Us, Jobless Poverty and Prison for You
by grarpamp 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-white-house-sandbags-staffers-sidelines… https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/past-marijuana-use-won-t-automat… https://twitter.com/SlimiHendrix/status/1372888660945866753 https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1372904356937359366 https://twitter.com/tomjohn266/status/1323492133551009792 https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1372893553345458187 Pot-Smoking White House Staffers Punished For Past Use Despite Assurances Dozens of White House staffers have been suspended, relocated, or asked to resign over past marijuana use, despite initial indications from transition officials that recreational use of cannabis would not be a disqualifying factor, according to the Daily Beast, citing three anonymous sources. The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal. Sources familiar with the matter also said a number of young staffers were either put on probation or canned because they revealed past marijuana use in an official document they filled out as part of the lengthy background check for a position in the Biden White House. -Daily Beast Staffers were initially told by transition higher-ups that the administration would likely overlook past marijuana use, only to later be asked for their resignation. "There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-staffers," one former White House staffer told the Beast. "I was asked to resign." "Nothing was ever explained" on the calls led by White House Director of Management and Administration, Anne Filipic. "The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained." The news comes after a February report from NBC News that the White House would waive the requirement that all potential appointees in the Executive Office obtain "top secret" clearance. The rules about past marijuana use and eligibility for the clearance vary, depending on the agency: For the FBI, an applicant can’t have used marijuana in the past three years; at the NSA, it’s only one. The White House, however, largely calls its own shots, and officials at the time told NBC News that as long as past use was “limited” and the candidate wasn’t pursuing a position that required a security clearance, past use may be excused. -Daily Beast this is so fuckin funny pic.twitter.com/d0MAT4s8yc — Trey Smith (@SlimiHendrix) March 19, 2021 Kamala Harris marching the young staffers who smoked weed out of the White House straight to Gitmo pic.twitter.com/H8lTQjPb3x — Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 19, 2021 What about Kamala? In February, 2019, Kamala was trying to look cool on The Breakfast Club - where she was asked by host Charlamagne Tha God whether she ever smoked pot, to which the now-Vice President replied: "I have. And I inhaled – I did inhale. It was a long time ago. But, yes." Kamala did inhale. Others went to jail. pic.twitter.com/D7GwQBandp — Tom John - 🌎NoH8 (@tomjohn266) November 3, 2020 When reached for comment, a White House spokesperson disputed the number of affected staff, but said that the Biden administration is "committed to bringing the best people into government—especially the young people whose commitment to public service can deepen in these positions." "The White House’s policy will maintain the absolute highest standards for service in government that the president expects from his administration, while acknowledging the reality that state and local marijuana laws have changed significantly across the country in recent years," the spokesperson added. "This decision was made following intensive consultation with career security officials and will effectively protect our national security while modernizing policies to ensure that talented and otherwise well-qualified applicants with limited marijuana use will not be barred from serving the American people." The president, meanwhile, is the final authority on who can receive a security clearance - meaning he has the power to keep promises made to his own staff whose dream jobs were just derailed. One thing I find genuinely admirable about Joe Biden is that with his son Hunter he understands that a punitive approach to drug use is harmful and counterproductive. But it's hard to square that with his hardline war on drugs position for everyone else. https://t.co/vDRFRbf0VM — Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 19, 2021

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SpyVeillance: All civilian vehicles realtime locations sold to Govt Military
by grarpamp 20 Mar '21

20 Mar '21

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7adn9/car-location-data-telematics-us-mili… https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20515640-ulysses-document A surveillance contractor that has previously sold services to the U.S. military is advertising a product that it says can locate the real-time locations of specific cars in nearly any country on Earth. It says it does this by using data collected and sent by the cars and their components themselves

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Ellsberg Snowden Assange: Blowing Lies of the Espionage Act
by professor rat 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

Daniel Ellsberg must be sick or senile to treat the NYT as a good-faith source after the Miller-Gordon episode in 2002. Yet he has done precisely this! If he had any friends they would have gotten help for him by now. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/judy-and-the-little-tubes_b_5117 KGB Matt Taibbi doesn't inspire confidence either. He's a Nazbol Turd - just like M. Ames, Yasha Levine and co. You are such a fucking moron, Gramps. All noise and no signal.

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Sky encrypted phone.
by jim bell 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

VICE: Encrypted Phone Firm 'Sky': Someone Sold Compromised Versions of Our App. https://www.vice.com/en/article/epd3km/sky-ecc-hacked-fake-app

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ASSANGE washes his lily hands of Snowden, Iraq, refugees & Whistleblowers
by professor rat 19 Mar '21

19 Mar '21

"... Mr Assange agreed that some level of privacy was necessary for the successful operation of the military ..." http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/assange-i-can-rule-from-… JULIAN " ‘[The military] protects the sovereignty of Australia. It protects the independence of Australia.' ASSANGE July, 2013

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